American Writers Museum

Coming Attractions (or not) – September, 2023

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I was berated today for not telling people about events before they happen. So, for all of you out there who haven’t yet learned how to use your computer, and since I have a little time to kill, here are some ideas for things to do in September.

First, and foremost, and before you tire of my sarcasm, you must go to the Porchlight Music Theatre’s Icons Gala on the 8th at the Athenaeum Center. It will, as always, be a very entertaining evening and, if you buy one of the top-tier tickets, you get to mingle with me at the pre-show cocktail reception. Also, the guest of honor, Ben Vereen, will be in attendance.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, the Chicago Jazz Festival comes to town the first few days of the month. You’re on your own as to which acts might interest you. I stopped going years ago, as I tired of the modern, atonal nonsense they inappropriately call music, but there are a few acts on the calendar this year that I either have seen before and liked or am confident enough about to risk a trek down to Millennium Park or the Cultural Center for a look-see.

The Fourth Presbyterian Church takes its Noonday Concerts indoors starting this Friday, which seems premature to me, but allows them to put to use their big honking organ, though, fortunately for my tastes, not until the end of the month, so, again, why not keep things outdoors until then.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (seems like 40 years taking into account having to traverse all those stairs) on the 9th in Millennium Park. The unprecise schedule makes it hard to know when I might want to drop in, though the likelihood of families attending the afternoon sessions is fair warning to avoid those.

The Printers Row Lit Fest is that same weekend (both days). It always presents a plethora of interesting exhibitors and programs, if you can find them in the event’s labyrinth (watch out for the Minotaur).

And, not finally, but I’m tired, the American Writers Museum is hosting Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fair on the 12th, which will feature refreshments, carnival games, and an Adult Spelling Bee, which, I assume, means either dirty words and/or easier ones than the obnoxiously well-prepared kids at the real one have to tackle.

Get (Green) Lit: Mini Golf, Big Vibes – American Writers Museum – April 11, 2023

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Though I recently decided to give up golf for all of eternity and beyond, and, accordingly, donated my clubs to a charity supporting the children of incarcerated white-collar criminals, an oft-overlooked, downtrodden minority, I decided, after consultation with, and advice from, numerous anonymous philosophers who are committed to agreeing with whatever I say, that it would not be in conflict with my commitment to golf celibacy if I engaged in miniature golf, an offshoot of the sacred Scottish pastime that emerged in the early 20th century and that still flourishes today, governed internationally by the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF).

So it was that my first time at one of the American Writers Museum’s new Get Lit series events was to tee it up with a large, joyous crowd of fellow competitors amidst the AWM exhibits and try my hand at bouncing the ball off walls, typewriters, books, and crumbled first drafts strewn on the floor around the premises while toting a drink that provided the double meaning to Get Lit and proof that bibliophiles can have as much fun as real people, and, presumably, more than even the most advanced artificial neural network (remember Lieutenant Commander Data’s travails regarding the emotion chip on Star Trek: The Next Generation).

I shot one under par for the nine-hole course, but, alas, ran out of time to meet the evening’s guest, Tom Coyne, who has written several books about golf, including one regarding his attempt to qualify for the PGA tour, though, perhaps, I would be better served by meeting Craig Bass, author of How to Quit Golf: A 12-Step Program.

American Writers Festival – Chicago Cultural Center and American Writers Museum – May 15, 2022

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I’ve delayed writing about the American Writers Festival because first I wanted to watch the animated Love, Death & Robots on Netflix. Huh?

I went to the festival primarily to see my favorite living science fiction author, John Scalzi (which reminds me, Willie Mays celebrated his 91st birthday earlier this month), whom I first discovered at an AWM program in October, 2018, at which time I had yet to read any of his books (Scalzi, that is – I don’t think Mays has written anything, but he sure could do everything else). Since then I’ve read all 16 of his novels and one of his short stories.

But I didn’t know, until I saw Scalzi at the festival, that five episodes of L, D & R were based on other stories of his. So, I now also can recommend those, with a special shout out for When the Yogurt Took Over.

I was planning on going too to two other programs at the festival, but a staff member at the museum wouldn’t let me go to the ready room to annoy, I mean say hello to, Jennifer Keishen Armstrong (it wan’t a cold call – she does know me, honest) before she came out to do her live Dead Writer Drama podcast, which then caused me to lose interest in staying to hear her and later Peter Sagal and several of his closest friends for them to tell me how to write comedy, as if they could. This was not unlike how the actions of a couple high school teachers caused me to lose interest in studying for years. Also, I was lazy.

The Theory of Nothing

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Just because the world has ground to a halt doesn’t mean that I should stop writing, or does it? Have I misinterpreted the signs? Anyway, to help us all pass the time, here are some notes about some of the things I’m not doing.

Speaking of signs, and the stealing thereof, I’m not watching baseball games. I wouldn’t anyway, but my class on the Literature of Baseball at Northwestern’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will be held online, instead of in person, which means I don’t get to indulge in the delicious home-made brownies that a member of the class, who is a baker, brings each week.

I’m not watching March Madness or running my pool, which is a shame because I concocted some bizarre rules this year in the hope that no one else would understand them. In that vein, in the absence of games, I have declared myself the winner of the pool.

Despite having been the Wizard of Oz in Wicked on Broadway, Joel Grey apparently does not have the power to make everything right and so is not going to the 25th Anniversary Porchlight Music Theatre Icons Gala honoring him and neither is anyone else, including me, at least until it gets rescheduled.

I’m not going to the postponed Newberry Library Associates Night, where I was hoping to cop some free wine and cheese and then sneak out before the staff droned on about research that would have bored me to tears.

I’m not going to the American Writers Museum to listen to Gene Luen Yang talk about his new graphic novel Dragon Hoops, as he cancelled his in-person book tour, and instead, according to his website, is touring as a cartoon.

I’m not going to the Civic Orchestra of Chicago’s 100th Anniversary Concert, which was to feature Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, which also was performed at the orchestra’s first-ever concert on March 29, 1920. I missed that one too.

The Peanuts Papers: Charlie Brown, Snoopy & The Gang, and the Meaning of Life – American Writers Museum – November 4, 2019

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Happiness is a warm puppy. It’s also listening to cartoonists Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti, in a panel moderated by editor and literary agent Andrew Blauner, sing the praises of Charles Schulz and credit him with being the inspiration for their careers, although Brunetti admitted that part of the reason he became a cartoonist was because he couldn’t see himself as a more traditional artist wearing a beret and smock.

Schulz hated the name Peanuts, it having been forced upon him by the United Feature Syndicate, which the speakers referred to only as the syndicate, making me think that Charlie Brown was controlled by the mob.

Schulz based the strip generally on his own childhood experiences, though he favored hockey over football, and thus didn’t have the recurring placekicking issues Charlie had. While the speakers stated that Schulz never allowed Charlie to kick the ball, I’ve found possible evidence to the contrary, a cel showing a successful attempt with the help of Spiderman!

The panelists also mentioned Schulz having won the Reuben. A corned beef sandwich seemed like an odd prize until I discovered that it wasn’t food, but rather an award named after Reuben “Rube” Goldberg, presented to the Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year.

The same year he won the award, 1955, Schulz took the advice of a fan and cut the unpopular character Charlotte Braun from the strip. He then sent a letter, preserved in the Library of Congress, back to the fan with a drawing showing an ax in Braun’s head. Good Grief!

One final note. It has been announced that the upcoming 8th version of the Snoopy Thanksgiving parade balloon will be clad in astronaut gear to honor the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Not so coincidentally, episode one of the new Apple TV show, Snoopy in Space, launched on November 1.

Literature’s Lineage: Descendants of Writers Share Family Stories – American Writers Museum – September 26, 2019

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I came for the daughter of the man who created Superman, that is Laura Siegel Larson, daughter of Jerry Siegel, not Friedrich Nietzsche or George Bernard Shaw, and stayed for Steve Soboroff, the man who lent more than a dozen typewriters for the American Writers Museum’s current exhibit, Tools of the Trade.

Soboroff, a Los Angeles Police commissioner, among a wide variety of other things, could have held the audience’s attention all night with his stories about how he acquired his collection and how he goes about verifying the authenticity of the typewriters, but he shared the stage with Larson, Gwendolyn Brooks’ daughter Nora Brooks Blakely, Hugh Hefner’s daughter Christie, and Maya Angelou’s grandson Colin Johnson, as they shared memories of typewriters as the focal point of their households.

While their stories were interesting, I have to believe that a tools of the trade exhibit at Amsterdam’s Museum of Prostitution would elicit tales about more stimulating, though possibly illicit, activities.

Nevertheless, writers’ quotes concerning typewriters abound. Graham Greene, for example, wasn’t a fan. “My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.” Perhaps he should have tried using more than two fingers, not that I do.

Elmore Leonard was a little less archaic. “It took me 20 years to buy an electric typewriter, because I was afraid it would be too sensitive. I like to bang the keys. I’m doing action stories, so that’s the way I like to do it.” Different typewriters for different kinds of writing? A novel thought.

And finally, more from Leonard, though not about typewriters. “I try to leave out the parts readers skip.” And so I end.

Boston Typewriter Orchestra – ONWORD – American Writers Museum Annual Benefit – Four Seasons Hotel – April 9, 2019

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The ONWORD event featured, on display, eight typewriters from the forthcoming Tools of the Trade exhibit, opening in June at the American Writers Museum. There were typewriters that had been used by Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury, and Hugh Hefner, among others.

Working off the theme of the exhibit, the entertainment was the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. I’m not sure what makes the Boston Typewriter Orchestra an orchestra, which is normally thought of as consisting of instruments from different families, such as strings and woodwinds, as opposed to an ensemble of, in this case, only percussion instruments. My guess is that it’s because the name sounds more pretentious.

Nevertheless, the idea of a typewriter orchestra sounded interesting, as it turned out, more interesting than the orchestra sounded. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about someone playing Leroy Anderson’s famous Typewriter on a typewriter with The Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra. That’s two minutes of fun.

I think the all-typewriter Boston group should have combined their music with a literary theme. For example, with a nod to the earth’s monkey population, they could have read whatever they typed as a result of their “music” to see if their compositions resulted in Shakespeare.

Or, they could have taken a piece of written work and tunefully typed it out in a manner that reflected the substance of the work. Maybe, even make it a name that tune, or rather book, game. Listen to the typewriters and try to guess what book they’re typing. That would have kept everyone’s attention longer than the 15 seconds that the actual performance did.

I wonder what the museum will do next year.  Perhaps they’ll bring in the Chicago Metamorphosis Orchestra Project and its Paper Orchestra.  Or, what about a fountain pen orchestra, making different sounds with different colors of ink? Too subtle?

John Scalzi – The Consuming Fire – American Writers Museum – October 22, 2018

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John Scalzi is one sharp, wacky dude.

He’s won two Hugo awards, and even his cat has a blog, which Scalzi says has 14,000 followers. Another 13,961 and I’ll catch up.

Scalzi rolls a ten-sided die at the beginning of each speaking engagement to decide what to talk about, so that it’s not the same every time and he doesn’t get bored.

Number 1 came up – “Read from an upcoming work.” He read from School for Hostages.

Number 5 came up -“Speak authoritatively and persuasively for several moments on a topic chosen by the audience (even if I don’t know anything about that topic).” Scalzi refers to this as improv mansplaining. Audience members raise their hands as soon as they decide that he’s full of BS. When a majority of the audience has their hands raised, he stops. However, the audience loved his BS so much that they kept their hands down long after he had lost all credibility discussing wombats.

Number 8 came up – “Give a Mini-Clinic on how to write a novel in just (mumble mumble) weeks!” Scalzi wrote The Consuming Fire (80,000 words) in two weeks (though the story was floating around in his head before that), necessitated by his mistake about the manuscript’s due date. He said he locked himself in a room, put a block on social media and the internet, and asked his wife to slip food under the door, but relented to his wife’s demand that he leave the room to use the bathroom when he needed to relieve himself.

Scalzi didn’t say whether the room had a window, but downplayed the saying that a writer is working when he’s staring out the window. He suggested that sometimes he’s just looking at squirrels.

I was hoping zero would come up – “Reveal the Meaning of Life.” I may have to follow his book tour around the country to get that insight.

Mystery Writer – American Writers Museum – October 15, 2018

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I was working for free, again, but the investigation was important.

I bogarted my way past the first floor security desk and climbed the stairs to the second floor to avoid getting cornered in an elevator.

I waved as I hurried past the museum staff, trying to look as if I were on an important mission, but not as if I were trying to avoid their attention. My father used to tell me that you could get in anywhere if you wore a suit and carried a clipboard. Now you can do it with blue jeans and an iPad.

I captured my usual seat, which had been left vacant out of good fortune, or perhaps out of some acknowledgement that it was my seat, based upon prior events. While in law school, a friend and I braved sitting in the university president’s box at football games enough times that we became fast friends with the president’s wife and the security guards thought we belonged, kicking others out of the seats when they saw us coming.

Upon entry, the author immediately began reading passages from her latest book. I didn’t find them particularly compelling, which had been my opinion regarding one of her earlier books, but as I seem to be in the minority in this regard, I may need to try another.

She then launched into a Q and A that revealed what brought her to Chicago from Kansas; a PhD in History; her early employment by an insurance company as fodder for her first book; what authors she reads; her morning routine that leads to a theoretical, often ignored, starting time of her writing day; her coffee addiction; and that her husband was a protege of Enrico Fermi.

If Sara Paretsky is a judge again next year at the Printers Row Lit Fest Mystery Writers of America Flash Fiction Contest, I now have lots of tidbits about her personal life to throw into my story to grab her attention.

1,000 Books to Read Before You Die – James Mustich – American Writers Museum – October 4, 2018

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At the end of the 1960 version of the movie The Time Machine, Mrs. Watchett, the housekeeper of H.G. Wells’s alter ego George, discovers three empty spaces on the book shelves. George’s friend Filby asks what three books Watchett would have taken (to aid the Eloi in the year 802,701 A.D.), a question that goes unanswered.

Also unanswered, at least for me, is whether The Time Machine, or any other Wells work, is included in 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. I didn’t think to ask Musitch and the alphabetical by author excerpt on Amazon doesn’t make it to W. Perhaps I should travel back in time and ask Musitch, or, I could buy the book.

Interestingly, Wells’s book doesn’t pose the question about what books to take. And the 2002 movie remake starring Guy Pearce circumvents it by including a photonic librarian in the future who has the knowledge contained in all the books ever published. That’s more memory than my iPhone.

Pearce also plays a character in the movie Memento, suffering from anterograde amnesia, who has short term memory loss approximately every five minutes, so really no point in reading any books. And, while it seems like that would make learning lines difficult, as Marlon Brando demonstrated, memorization is unnecessary as long as you have a fellow actor like Robert Duvall in the Godfather holding up cue cards against his body for your benefit.

Brando said it helped with his spontaneity.  I wonder if I could have used that excuse in order to bring a cheat sheet to an exam. I recall that Woody Allen said he was thrown out of college for cheating on a metaphysics exam when he looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to him.

Musitch demonstrated a healthy memory, rattling off knowledge and opinion about books and authors I’ve never heard of, but I bet I know more about Seinfeld, Law and Order, and The Big Bang Theory episodes than he does.